


The Healer

by HimsaAhimsa



Category: Breaking Bad
Genre: Gen, Light Angst, Papabear!Mike
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 19:16:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28675824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HimsaAhimsa/pseuds/HimsaAhimsa
Summary: Mike struggles with the loss of his son, Matty, and the addition of his new charge, Jesse.
Relationships: Mike Ehrmantraut/Jesse Pinkman
Comments: 6
Kudos: 14
Collections: Blue Christmeth 2020





	The Healer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [What_we_are](https://archiveofourown.org/users/What_we_are/gifts).



> Takes place around S4 “Shotgun” and goes AU from there.
> 
> For What_we_are, who requested Mike/Jesse “Anything sweet" for Blue Crystmeth 2020
> 
> Beta by the one and only porkchop_sandwiches. Thank you so much!! *kisskiss*

“It’s going be another _coooooold_ one today,” the radio announcer enthused.

Mike rolled his eyes as he huffed a breath of warm air into his cupped hands. He could almost hear a scoff emanate from his right, followed by derision in the form of some off-color remark or another, but the passenger seat sat empty, or at least it would for the remainder of the drive across town. 

Mike adjusted the heat as plumes of exhaust billowed upwards against the bite of the air from the cars idling in front of him, and he thought about the day before: It had been an exercise in restraint, something Mike didn’t usually find challenging after so many years as a beat cop in Philly, but the kid he’d been training (if one could actually call dragging a brooding twenty-four-year-old around for nine and a half hours on drop site pick-ups as training) exhausted his patience in the extreme. 

Of course, it wasn’t just the brooding that got under Mike’s skin. It was the fidgeting and the nonsense, the incessant and sometimes arbitrary questions and the purported indifference towards work, responsibilities, and life on the whole that drove Mike up the wall. It made his jaw clench just thinking about it. 

He’d had a son. A bright son. A handsome, intelligent, hard-working son, with a wife and a beautiful baby daughter. Mike was supposed to check out first, with the knowledge that Matty was headed down the right path—the _solid_ path, with unshakeable foundations that they’d cemented together—sure in his footing, leading his family and Mike’s legacy along the way. 

But life, as Mike knew it, rarely turned out the way he’d anticipated or hoped, and his dear son—his only child—had departed the world much too soon. 

And now. Now, as if by some cruel turn of fate to teach him some cosmic lesson, Mike had been saddled with Jesse Pinkman as his charge. Pinkman, the very antithesis of Matty, in every conceivable way.

The traffic signal changed, and the heater finally kicked in with the car’s acceleration. He’d need to replace the thermostat soon, now that winter had most certainly arrived, reminding him of his progressing age with every twinge of his achy joints. 

The radio announcer droned on as Mike made his way to the other side of town, and only finally concluded his irritating monologue as Mike pulled up alongside the curb and honked. He tried to enjoy Bing Crosby crooning White Christmas for a brief moment before the inevitable would happen: the passenger door would swing open, letting in a gust of chill air along with a chill attitude. 

Mike pulled in a deep breath and held it, steeling himself for not just the day, but the first glimpse of the kid with his defiant sneer. 

But three minutes later, he still hadn’t appeared, and Mike laid into the horn again, for a longer duration this time, hoping it relayed his impatience and irritation. After another two minutes, the door finally opened, and Jesse barreled out, closing the door behind him and dropping his keys not once, but twice, as he locked up. 

The door creaked open on its hinges as he climbed into the car and plopped down next to Mike, then again as it slammed shut. 

“Let’s get this over with,” he groused, scrubbing both hands over his face, then the over his hair—or what was left of it. The buzz-cut was new, and Mike wondered briefly what the hell had prompted him to deliberately shave off a headful of downy hair. Whatever the reason, Mike silently scorned the decision, trying to remember, with some difficulty and a touch of envy, what a headful of youthful hair even felt like.

“ _What?_ ” Jesse snapped, pausing in rubbing his hands together for warmth to meet Mike’s searching glare.

Mike resisted the urge to backhand the little shit, settling instead for baring his teeth and narrowing his eyes. “We gonna start every morning like this?” Mike pried. “With this _mood_?”

Jesse started to react, leaning forward as his lower lip dropped, but then he shook his head and turned his gaze out the window, choosing to gnaw on a fingernail, instead. 

Without the expected retort, Mike’s outlook on the day improved just the slightest. He shifted the transmission into drive and pulled away from the curb, heading for their first stop. He had just relaxed into the seat and began to let his mind wander, when he heard Jesse grumbling next to him. 

“What was that?” Mike goaded. “You got something to say?” 

He eyed Jesse sideways as the kid pulled his hand away from his mouth to glower at Mike. “Like you’re one to talk.”

Mike shook his head, trying to make sense of what seemed to be a non sequitur. “What?”

“ _Your_ mood.” Jesse gesticulated broadly towards Mike as though it were obvious. “I’ve met death row inmates more pleasant than you. Is it, like, some chronic condition of the elderly?”

Mike sat with that for a moment, grudgingly admitting to himself that the kid did have a small point before he decided he wouldn’t let backtalk slide in _his_ car. But the thinly veiled, shit-eating grin on the kid’s face pulled him up short. God, it reminded him of Matty, when they’d rib each other with as much relentless sarcasm as they could muster, trying all the while not to laugh. 

Not that Mike foresaw some sort of budding fellowship between them, or that Mike didn’t _chronically_ yearn to pop Jesse in the teeth for that matter, but it was something of a reprieve—if only an infinitesimal one—to get a smile out of the kid instead of vitriol, even if it came off the heels of a flung insult. Mike would let him have this round, just this once. The ever-present circles under the kid’s eyes appeared darker today, his already waifish frame that much slighter. Maybe the kid could use a break today, and just maybe, Mike could use a break from the burden of his perpetual anger.

* * *

Despite Mike’s earlier resolve towards clemency, his irritation had peaked again by two o’clock. 

After numerous requests for bathroom stops, cigarette breaks and appeals for an early lunch, Mike had just about had it. Even with a pimento sandwich sating his belly and his still pleasantly warm coffee in his thermos, it didn’t seem enough to temper his simmering ire, and the next round of questioning nearly sent him flying off the handle.

“How many more of these are we gonna do today?” the kid complained, following Mike through some shrub to the drop spot with his incessant trail of cigarette smoke. “I mean, this has got to be number, what, twelve in two days? Is this normal? Are there more tomorrow, too?” A pause, then, all too quickly broken by a gravelly voice that had born too much smoke for one day, if not a short lifetime: “Yo, how many times you do this a month?” 

“ _Christ_ , Kid, how many questions are you gonna ask me? We’re here to do a job, and it’ll take as long as it takes. The sooner you get that through your head, the easier this will go for both of us.”

Mike repositioned the cover on the deposit box and slid the rock back in place atop of it, moving out of the kid’s long shadow to shoot a glance back at him. Even squinting against the sun, Mike could make out the particulars of the kid’s face: eyes narrowed more out of anger than any necessity to filter the light, chin jutted. 

For all the effort of the tough-guy act that Jesse seemed bent on achieving with his leather jacket and tattoos, the effect was completely lost on Mike. The kid shot him a _go fuck yourself_ look but then blew his smoke in the opposite direction—case in point—clearly unaware that he wore his virtue and vulnerability so close to the surface. 

The kid would likely be discomfited to know that Mike had easily recognized his tendency to hesitate before speaking and performing most tasks, which spoke to the kid’s lack of confidence, and that his frequently upturned brows and wide eyes often gave away his uncertainty and unending pursuit of approval, especially from the likes of older men. 

Stumbling upon that realization, another puzzle piece slotted into place for Mike, and the kid’s new buzz-cut, which had seemed prompted by nothing in particular, if not ill-planned considering the seasonal transition to colder weather, suddenly made sense: The kid’s entire social circle (apart from dead girlfriends and veritable vagrants, whom he’d been allowing, at one point, to dwell in and defile his home) consisted of a pocketful of cue balls, himself included. 

Mike couldn’t help but feel a tug of flattery at that, though he’d bet the kid was entirely unconscious of his own act of imitation. 

Jesse ground his cigarette out beneath the toe of his sneaker and plodded away to pick up a stick, the gravelly desert floor crunching beneath his feet. He poked at a cholla as Mike loosely counted the bills, then tossed the stick away just as quickly. “Can we go, now?” he asked. “I’m freezing my balls off.” The ever-present petulance in his tone endured, unwavering as he kicked at the sand, a sharp gust of howling wind blowing the grains askew in its wake.

The demonstration evoked a memory from Mike’s past, from some twenty-odd years prior, of a family trip to Ocean Grove, New Jersey, where Matty had first laid eyes on the Atlantic. His then six-year-old had taken to the sea with an unbridled joy that would have carried him adrift had Mike not stepped in with a firm hand and firmer boundaries. Hard as it was to keep Matty limited to the shoreline, it was a bitch of an endeavor getting him back to the car afterward. A true fish, his son loathed the idea of leaving, and he’d kicked up a fuss, along with half of the sand on the beach.

A smile quirked at Mike’s lips at the recollection; a memory forgotten, jogged only by circumstance, yet still clear in his mind as it had been that day, back when his fear for his son only went as far as his holster and his hold on Matty’s arm near the waves.

* * *

The next day started much the same as the one before it: Late, with dropped items. This time, the kid’s cigarette lighter skittered under the car, which he fished out, but not without a litany of expletives that would make a sailor blush.

Once settled into his seat and buckled in, he’d slipped the lighter into his half-emptied cigarette package with shaking hands, and Mike noted that the purple smudges under the kid’s eyes had darkened further, along with his mood in general, lighter fumbling notwithstanding. 

“ _What_?” the kid barked out, apparently feeling Mike’s eyes on him. “I’m not going to smoke in the car, alright? _Geez._ ”

And he didn’t. The kid didn’t smoke in the car, nor did he pester Mike, whine, complain or even talk for the better part of an hour, a feat that Mike didn’t think the kid capable of, and one that proved equal parts enjoyable and unnerving. 

Lunch came at noon, per Mike’s suggestion, and Jesse didn’t argue or dispute it. They had breezed through two drops and a back-alley purchase of surveillance equipment without issue, or so much as a cross word. They’d checked in with Gus at the chicken farm, passed the deposits on and picked up deliveries without commentary or complaint. It seemed too good to be true. The day had gone so smoothly to that point, in fact, that Mike hesitated to communicate at all, lest he spoil it for himself, but then the kid folded forward, burying his head in his hands. And though Mike was a lot of things: a codger, a curmudgeon, a cantankerous old fart—he wasn’t completely without a heart.

“You alright over there?” Mike inquired.

“Yeah,” Jesse murmured, curling even further in on himself. “Just have a headache.” 

Mike glimpsed the kid sideways as he drove. “My son … _Matty_ … he used to get headaches as a kid. Was probably allergic to something now that I think back on it. He’d get them certain times a year. Anyway, he’d get these headaches— _migraines,_ they were. He’d press the heels of his hands into his eyes, just like that. He’d always end up puking before they went away.”

“Thanks,” Jesse deadpanned, tilting his head up to flash a weary expression at Mike. “That’s helpful. You have any Aspirin? ‘Cause that would be even more helpful,” he quipped as his voice cracked, sending him into a coughing fit.

“Not on me, sorry. But maybe if you’d cut that shit out,” Mike pointed to Jesse’s cigarettes lying on the dash, “it might help on the whole, if you want my two cents’ worth.”

“Thanks,” Jesse spat as he recovered, “but I don’t need another _asshole_ playing daddy to me, and I really don’t want your two cents.”

Mike turned his eyes back to the road, letting the remark slide with nary a sigh, but it bothered him. He wondered if Matty would’ve regarded him as such—as an _asshole_. They’d disagreed their fair share of times and had parted dimensions on less-than-stellar terms. 

Well, it had been worse than that, really. Their last telephone conversation had consisted of Matty’s censured discovery of corruption within their precinct, and Mike’s confession of complicity within it. It had shattered Matty’s image of him, Mike had known. It had broken Matty’s heart, which in turn, had broken Mike’s own. If Matty hadn’t died, hadn’t been killed by that very corruption, Mike thought— _wanted to believe,_ then he would've been able to mend that image in time. 

But there hadn’t been time.

Mike considered Jesse’s family, then; contemplated what kind of man _his_ father had been, and what kinds of revelations Jesse had made about _him_ ; what kinds of differences had never been worked out between the two of them. 

Knowing very little about the man, but aware that Mr. Pinkman currently lived within the city, Mike reasoned that he still had the chance to right his wrongs with his son, to make amends, and yet the evidence that he had, as of yet, left that chance behind, sat to Mike’s right, bitter and disenfranchised, more jaded than he had any right to be at his young age.

The kid melted back into the seat, rubbing at his eyes once more.

“Hegu,” Mike declared, suddenly, remembering an old trick, and Jesse peeked around his hands at him in confusion. 

“Hey-what?”

“He-goo,” Mike enunciated. It’s a pressure point.” Mike reached over as he drove to indicate the point on Jesse’s hand, pressing the tip of his index finger into the fleshy bit of the kid’s palm, and the pad of his thumb at the same point from the back of his hand. “Squeeze here, like this. It’ll help your head a bit.”

Jesse's eyebrows arched at that, his doubt clear as he tried the method for himself, holding his hand in his own pincered grasp, but at least quietude had prevailed once again.

* * *

Jesse, subdued with his headache, had contented himself with watching the road pass by out his window in silence for a good thirty minutes, the hum of the tires lulling their space into blanketed calm. 

Their last stop, however, brought a swift end to the serenity. 

All the kid had to do was transfer a load of Los Pollos containers from Mike’s trunk to the worktop in the back of the warehouse. Nine measly buckets, all within fifteen feet of their destination. It should have taken three minutes. It should have been over and done with by the time Mike finished up the monetary transaction inside with their contact. 

But instead of finding the kid in the passenger seat, ready to go, Mike stepped out of the warehouse and into a mess—a literal mess—of chicken batter, puddled on the ground. A trail of it led to back to Mike’s car, where the kid had taken up a crucified pose, batter dribbling down the front of his ridiculous hoodie and its voluminous sleeves.

Mike waddled over, batter-footed, concerned with the state of his trunk, which, he learned, was just as bad as he’d surmised. Seven of the nine buckets remained, forming a moat full of the goop, which oozed into the spare tire well, and, by extension, onto his tire iron, jacks, and anything else he’d left down there that wouldn’t benefit from a sticky, perishable coating. 

He’d never been the type to yell. He’d swatted his son a few times when it was apt, but he’d never yelled. He’d taken time to teach, allowed for errors and allotted time for contemplation, but he’d never dressed his son down, belittled him or torn him apart verbally. For a moment, however, Mike felt inclined to do just that, to indulge himself the outlet that a good scream could provide. 

The kid seemed to sense it, anticipate it, even, standing there with his round eyes in his expectant face, both parts pitiful and precious, dripping in his own failure and ineptitude as much as the mush rolling off him, and Mike couldn’t stand to compound it. 

“Come on,” Mike said, exhaling. “Let’s get this cleaned up.”

* * *

The upcoming winter solstice and the extra hour of clean-up extended their work to the end of the day, and the sky blazed a myriad of crimson shades at the horizon by the time they pulled into Jesse’s neighborhood. 

Mike had just pulled up alongside the curb, and Jesse, faring no better for his mistake and subsequent labor in fixing it, shouldered the passenger door open blindly, undoubtedly itching to make straight for whatever stash of painkillers his medicine cabinet might’ve harbored and a horizontal surface to collapse onto. He hadn’t noticed the aberration, but Mike had, and he grabbed the kid’s bicep, pulling him back into his seat. 

“What?” Jesse asked, following the direction of Mike’s scrutiny. Then he saw it: His front door standing wide open, spray paint snaking around the corners and planes of the walls, the curves of threatening words confounding and ominous all the same. 

“Stay here,” Mike instructed as he climbed out and headed for the door. Drawing his firearm, he made his way through the entryway, into the slum that had once been a living room. More of the sinister denotations meandered over the interior walls in red and black paint, alongside the previously punched holes in his walls, but the house, at least, was clear of intruders. 

Shards of glass littered the floor along with countless cigarette butts, trash, and food scraps in nearly all of the rooms. Mike didn't care to speculate how much of the mess had been left by the perpetrators versus Jesse and his 'guests' themselves, but Mike couldn’t, in good conscience leave Jesse there. 

“Go inside and pack a few things. You’re coming with me,” he’d instructed, in a tone that brooked no argument, and Jesse did as he was told.

* * *

Mike had insisted the kid shower and change when they’d gotten back to Mike’s place, considering the sodden, savory-smelling mess he’d become, soaking in chicken batter for the better part of an hour. He wished the car was as easily remedied, but he supposed there wasn’t much to be done about that until morning.

Meanwhile, Mike prepared dinner and brought some extra blankets out to the couch, a bottle of Aspirin to the kitchen, and by the time the kid padded out of the bathroom in sock feet and another ostentatious and oversized sweatshirt, he appeared somewhat restored, though the flush of his cheeks looked suspiciously more indicative of a fever than any hot shower could account for in itself.

They’d sat at Mike’s little table as they ate, with the occasional question or comment, mostly confined to the topic of work, but otherwise, Jesse remained more muted than normal.

“How’re you feeling?” Mike asked as he finished up his portion of frozen lasagna and peas.

Jesse shrugged in response, pushing the food around on his plate with his fork more than actually consuming it.

“That good, huh?” Mike prodded, but in truth, he didn’t need to ask. He’d seen Jesse coming off a few big benders, and even though Mike knew him to be presently sober, the kid appeared similarly ragged, slumped in his chair with half-lidded eyes and a complexion befitting of a statue in a wax museum. 

Jesse peered up at him with dull eyes then and straightened himself, tried to arrange his features into a more lively version of himself. “I’m alright,” he lied, brushing off Mike’s concern as he hoisted himself up and began gathering dishes, whisking them off to the sink.

Mike watched him for a moment as he busied himself with the soap and the sponge, but when a plate dropped and clattered in the sink, Mike sent his charge to the couch. 

* * *

By the time the nightly news had ended, Mike had finished the morning’s crossword puzzle, with the exception of two answers. Jesse had long since fallen asleep at the end of the couch, and if he hadn’t been curled so awkwardly against the arm, Mike would have simply covered him over and gone to bed.

“Kid, wake up,” Mike nudged, shaking a narrow shoulder till the kid teetered upright, blinking in confusion at his surroundings. 

“You looked like you’d regret if you slept like that all night.” Mike explained, gathering the blankets from the back of the couch and placing them next to Jesse. “Help yourself to whatever you need. I’m going to bed.”

“Wait,” Jesse implored with a voice that had grown hoarser with sleep and whatever illness Mike suspected he was coming down with. “I’m sorry about your car. And for being such a pain in the ass, lately.”

Mike raised an eyebrow at that and nodded his acceptance. “I’ll make you some tea with honey in the morning and I’ll call you out of work. I think I have some zinc too—that’ll help.”

“How do you know all this shit?” the kid asked, somewhat amazed, as though the most basic of caretaking skills weren’t common knowledge. 

Then again, Mike thought, to Jesse, perhaps they weren’t. Mike had been a father; had to care for someone outside of himself. He _still_ cared, and that was the crux of it: He’d cared, but it hadn't been enough to save his son. But, he also knew, deep down, that all the caring in the world, or caring by any other means, for that matter, likely wouldn’t have changed what had happened. 

Tears formed in Mike’s eyes and he turned his head momentarily to hide them. 

“I was something like a healer in my past life,” Mike ribbed drily in answer. Jesse snorted at that, smiling in earnest as he rubbed a hand over his face, then yawned widely. 

Mike thwacked the kid on the shoulder with his folded crossword. “Get some more sleep,” he ordered, and started off toward his room. 

"G'night," Jesse rumbled sleepily in return, and Mike began to think that maybe healing was possible in this life, too.


End file.
